The third Baltic Young Jazz Artist Competition was held on 4 November 2026 at Ezītis Miglā in the Tallinas quarter of Riga, Latvia. The first prize went to 26-year-old bassist Beāte Meirāne, and the award funds a recording.
Her band comprised saxophonist Emīls Knubis, keyboardist Bogdans Mihailovs, guitarist Jānis Griķis and drummer Markuss Leikums. They played her own compositions entirely from memory, with no sheet music or tablets on stage.
The second prize, sponsored by Riga microphone manufacturer JZ Microphones, went to 18-year-old vocalist Elza Marija Rudzīte, a student in the jazz department of the Jāzeps Mediņš Riga Music School, who performed with a band of fellow students.
Meirāne is already a familiar name in the Latvian scene: she is the only composer born after 2000 among the 86 represented in Latvian Jazz Tunes.
Other finalists included the Bogdans Mihailovs Trio (with Nils Valkiainens and Markuss Leikums), solo pianist Sofija Graviņa, bands led by vocalists Petra Griškeviča and Betija Keita Balode, and Seodophy from Lithuania. The 2025 winner, flautist Sniedze Kārkliņa, performed while the jury deliberated.
The jury comprised Ragnhild Menes, chair of Norsk jazzforum; Aggelos Kleitsikas, artistic director of the Athens Jazz Festival; Pablo Mazuecos Nievas, founder and president of Clasijazz in Spain; and Iro Graonidou, international project coordinator at Clasijazz.
Source: UK Jazz News, Sebastian Scotney, 8 November 2026. Photo: Vadims Kožins / UK Jazz News.